Increasingly, capsules are offered on the market which contain active ingredients for the preparation of beverages. These active ingredients may be present in a solid, liquid or granulated form. Capsules of this kind comprise capsules which are suitable for the preparation of coffee. Typical examples of such capsules are shown in EP-A-0 512 468 and EP-A-1 190 959.
Substantially more complex are closures in various shapes or forms which comprise a storage space serving as a capsule and from which a solid, liquid or granulated active ingredient is to be dispensed into a container, on which the closure is fastened. One of the oldest closures of this kind is disclosed, for example, in document GB-A-1193989. Here a plug-on collar is placed on top of a container neck, which comprises an upwardly extending, cylindrical wall, wherein this wall is formed as a closed cylinder, in which a hollow press piston is mounted, which is filled with the respective active ingredient. A separate protective cap is placed on top of the piston cylinder part. A closure of this kind comprises many individual components, and it is not possible to fit and use it on conventional filling machines.
A very similar system is known from WO-A-03093128. Both in the case of this closure with integrated chamber and in case of the previously described closure, once the active ingredient has been dispensed, the capsule consisting of piston and cylinder unit must be removed.
A somewhat different system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,886,686. Again a separate chamber exists in which a ram is mounted which must be pressed downwards. The cylinder of the capsule is provided with a piercable bottom, to which the ram is attached. Here too, the capsule comprises a moving part configured as a flying piston which acts upon the ram, and this in turn pivots the bottom partly to one side.
More and more foodstuffs, medicines, cosmetics, adhesives and cleaning agents, as well as other substances described altogether as active ingredients, are offered in highly concentrated form. This has the advantage of reducing package sizes, lowering of transport costs and thereby reducing packaging expenditure. The disadvantage is that all these active ingredients in a highly concentrated form must be subsequently dosed to obtain the required usage quantities and then be added in a dosed manner to a liquid, i.e. a solvent in the widest sense. Frequently consumers do not take sufficient notice of the advice regarding the dosed quantity and tend to dispense a much higher concentration than required. This is detrimental to the end product to be produced and consumers will notice that the goods bought in concentrated form, in the end, cost more than if they had bought them in their ready-to-use diluted form. This has lead to the fact that the concentrated form of such active ingredients has not come to be accepted to the extent that would be desirable.
Therefore there has been a move towards offering these concentrated active ingredients in pre-dosed quantities. In the case of active ingredients in powder form these are offered in the form of tablets, capsules or lozenges. However, not all powdery active ingredients are suitable for being dispensed as tablets. And even if these active ingredients are dispensed in predefined portions, the corresponding liquid portions are missing which, usually after having been dosed, must then again be mixed with the solid or granulated active ingredients.
A capsule according to the preamble of patent claim 1 has been disclosed in document WO 2010/084176. In this instance the capsule is combined with the screw closure, and has a cylindrical capsule wall which is closed at its lower end by means of a destructible film, and the upper end of which has a convex flexible membrane to which a piercing member is attached, which prior to operating the convex membrane is completely contained in the chamber, and following operation of the membrane partially protrudes from the chamber, piercing the film. As already mentioned these combined capsule closures are used to dispense both solid and granulated or liquid active ingredients. Often these different types of active ingredient also mean that they cannot simply be stored in the capsule but must be stored specially, in particular in blister packs, in order to achieve an improved gas seal or liquid seal. As such it would be perfectly feasible to store a blister pack inside the capsule, or the blister pack itself could form a destructible film. This means that depending on the type of active ingredient a completely different type of destructible film could exist, i.e. not merely an aluminium film, but instead also a plastic film, a blister pack etc. These different possibilities of devising capsule closures also mean that different piercing members are required, i.e. piercing members which merely cause a perforation, or which cause a cut or which merely pierce. In practice this means that, depending on the ingredient stored in the capsule, a completely new injection mould must be employed. If a company then intends to offer an assortment of such closures, this would mean extremely high investments.